Ahh, camps. SOE never got the whole ranger thing at all. We accounted for so little of the playerbase - they kind of viewed us like a nudist colony. Enjoying some kind of odd feature or freedom perhaps just for the sake of being different.
Apparently, they never read our posts. Rangers waxed poetically for many paragraphs about the good times and memories they had in camps. Even to this day, any ranger based section on a forum tends to have a thread about ranger moments and I would bet the "E" key on my laptop that the word camp appears in the majority of them.
And like you said, there is the where the disconnect shows. No matter what WE submitted to them for ideas to help with the profession - they would always be silent and then slip in a new tweak which for the most part was exactly the wrong thing to do. I even remember the infamous Ranger Revamp papers. Half of us where like WTF? Where did those ideas come from?
Its like we were speaking Swahili and they could only understand Binary. There never was much in the way of dialogue. I have talked to my fair share of ranger correspondents and they all indicate that it was more like depositing mail in a mailbox. One way. And then occasionally and sometimes subltly the box would spit out something that wasn't even covered or suggested...nor in some cases made sense.
They didn't understand us. But you wanna know what was worse (and keep in mind this is coming from a hard core ranger)? They may not have understood us but they simply did NOT care about Smugglers. You wanna talk about iconic and Star Warsy? Smuggler is one of the first professions introduced into the whole Star Wars mythology. And what did they do in game? Really.
Disconnected and disinterested. It wasnt about finishing what they started, it was about starting something new to discover the one key element that would propel SWG to the top ranks. Jedi had been their hope there for a while. See how well that turned out.
Ahh, camps. SOE never got the whole ranger thing at all. We accounted for so little of the playerbase - they kind of viewed us like a nudist colony. Enjoying some kind of odd feature or freedom perhaps just for the sake of being different. Apparently, they never read our posts. Rangers waxed poetically for many paragraphs about the good times and memories they had in camps. Even to this day, any ranger based section on a forum tends to have a thread about ranger moments and I would bet the "E" key on my laptop that the word camp appears in the majority of them. And like you said, there is the where the disconnect shows. No matter what WE submitted to them for ideas to help with the profession - they would always be silent and then slip in a new tweak which for the most part was exactly the wrong thing to do. I even remember the infamous Ranger Revamp papers. Half of us where like WTF? Where did those ideas come from? Its like we were speaking Swahili and they could only understand Binary. There never was much in the way of dialogue. I have talked to my fair share of ranger correspondents and they all indicate that it was more like depositing mail in a mailbox. One way. And then occasionally and sometimes subltly the box would spit out something that wasn't even covered or suggested...nor in some cases made sense. They didn't understand us. But you wanna know what was worse (and keep in mind this is coming from a hard core ranger)? They may not have understood us but they simply did NOT care about Smugglers. You wanna talk about iconic and Star Warsy? Smuggler is one of the first professions introduced into the whole Star Wars mythology. And what did they do in game? Really. Disconnected and disinterested. It wasnt about finishing what they started, it was about starting something new to discover the one key element that would propel SWG to the top ranks. Jedi had been their hope there for a while. See how well that turned out.
Nudist colony lol. Well a lot of us did enjoy our hawtpants...
Kidding aside, this is yet another excellent description of the disconnect that seems to have plagued this game from the early days.
For me, that all seemed to be related to Smed's apparent "find the magic element that will lure all the WoW players" mentality.
Now he seems to be focused on "find the magic gimmick that will bring in tons of cash while offering players little if anything in return." Again, of course, this is going to be disconnected from what the paying customer would actually prefer, in most cases.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Comments
Excellent post Beatnik!
agreed. if we were to ever bring soe to court beatnik is our mouthpeice!
Yup. great post.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
Ahh, camps. SOE never got the whole ranger thing at all. We accounted for so little of the playerbase - they kind of viewed us like a nudist colony. Enjoying some kind of odd feature or freedom perhaps just for the sake of being different.
Apparently, they never read our posts. Rangers waxed poetically for many paragraphs about the good times and memories they had in camps. Even to this day, any ranger based section on a forum tends to have a thread about ranger moments and I would bet the "E" key on my laptop that the word camp appears in the majority of them.
And like you said, there is the where the disconnect shows. No matter what WE submitted to them for ideas to help with the profession - they would always be silent and then slip in a new tweak which for the most part was exactly the wrong thing to do. I even remember the infamous Ranger Revamp papers. Half of us where like WTF? Where did those ideas come from?
Its like we were speaking Swahili and they could only understand Binary. There never was much in the way of dialogue. I have talked to my fair share of ranger correspondents and they all indicate that it was more like depositing mail in a mailbox. One way. And then occasionally and sometimes subltly the box would spit out something that wasn't even covered or suggested...nor in some cases made sense.
They didn't understand us. But you wanna know what was worse (and keep in mind this is coming from a hard core ranger)? They may not have understood us but they simply did NOT care about Smugglers. You wanna talk about iconic and Star Warsy? Smuggler is one of the first professions introduced into the whole Star Wars mythology. And what did they do in game? Really.
Disconnected and disinterested. It wasnt about finishing what they started, it was about starting something new to discover the one key element that would propel SWG to the top ranks. Jedi had been their hope there for a while. See how well that turned out.
Nudist colony lol. Well a lot of us did enjoy our hawtpants...
Kidding aside, this is yet another excellent description of the disconnect that seems to have plagued this game from the early days.
For me, that all seemed to be related to Smed's apparent "find the magic element that will lure all the WoW players" mentality.
Now he seems to be focused on "find the magic gimmick that will bring in tons of cash while offering players little if anything in return." Again, of course, this is going to be disconnected from what the paying customer would actually prefer, in most cases.
Dear God, no more Team Hawtpants anymore, please
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
their business model is to extract the most money possible while spending the least amount possible.
actually in some business ventures this is admirable. however game design and marketing isn't running a Mcdonalds.
"The garment that shall not be named"
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi